12 April - Fergal's first

Irishman Fergal O'Brien won his
first ever major title by beating another first-time finalist,
Anthony Hamilton from England, 9-7 in the
final. Hamilton had three century breaks but still couldn't stop the Irishman who "only" had one
ton. O'Brien, ranked No 20 in the
world rankings, picks up the first prize
of £60,000 and Hamilton (ranked 11th) gets £32,000.

After this maiden victory O'Brien moves to No 10 in the
provisional rankings and is almost
certain to be in the top 16 of next season's world rankings. Hamilton jumps three places to 9th.

12 April - Ladies

Lynette Horsburgh won the Ladies title with a 4-3 win over Tessa Anderson.

Karen Corr played all weekend using a pool cue with a 12mm tip and has told
the girls that she is packing in the ladies after the world and returning to
USA full time.

Emma Bonney had a 60+ break in the last 32 against Jan Hughes and Karen had
an 80+ against Maria Catalano. That was also the highest break of the tournament.

The highest break in the final was 38 and Lynette won on the blue of the
final frame

8 April

Nick Walker's brave campaign came
to an end tonight after a desparately
close match against Brian Morgan.
Morgan sneaked through in a final frame decider by 54 points to 48.
Walker had opened a 2-1 lead with a break of 124. Morgan took the next two
with runs of 67 and 52. From 4-3 down Walker levelled with 52 before the
dramatic decider.

While Parrott and Davis droned on in front of the cameras, the other outside
tables saw runs of 58, 104, 74 and 56 from Ebdon as he went through, and
Jimmy Michie was firing on all
cylinders against Ronnie O'Sullivan. In a
quick fire match Michie beat Ronnie 5-3, despite runs of 52, 69 and 109 for O'Sullivan.

A magic day at Plymouth as
Graeme Dott, of Scotland knocks in
a maximum 147
break. Dott's effort earns him the £5000 high break prize and a car valued
at £22,000. Better than that, the break came when Dott was 3-4 down in his
match against Derby's David Roe and
enabled him to level the match.
Undeterred by all the excitement Dott went on to win 5-4.

6 April - 51 saves Jimmy

A break of 51 in the deciding frame saved
Jimmy White from defeat against
Joe Swail. White's win will greatly
enhance his chances of staying in the
Top 16. Jimmy opened the match in style with a break of 101 and added
further breaks of 85 and 60, but he was countered by a determined Swail who
compiled runs of 62, 63, 55 and 50 to give him a 4-3 lead, before Jimmy
pulled it out of the bag with 60 and the matchwinning 51 break.

Stephen Hendry, looking much more like his
old self, after victory in The
Irish B&H, strolled through his match against
Jonathan Birch 5-0, with
breaks of 136 and 109 and 61 to emphasise his return to form.

4 April - Williams wastes no time

The seeds all safely negotiated this afternoon's matches - apart from
Stephen Lee, who has had to scratch from the
tournament - handing
Scotland's Drew Henry a walkover.

Mark J Williams whistled through his
match against Joe Perry in double
quick time. Williams rattled in a run of 111 in frame 5 and rounded off
a routine 5-2 win with 61 in the last.

King and Mapstone in another high speed match.
Mark King recovered from
an early 2-1 deficit, which included a break of 113 for his West Country
opponent Barry Mapstone. From
2-2 King fired in breaks of 69 and 53 to
put the match beyond Mapstone's reach.

Essex's Brian Morgan came safely
through an awkward encounter with venue
debutant Phil Williams of Llanelli. Having been pegged to 2-2 at the
interval, Morgan's experienced told as he added breaks of 51 and 72 to
win 5-2.

The final qualifying round of the British Open - that takes the
winners full circle back to Plymouth, where they started out last
summer, produced probably the most dramatic day's play of the season
so far:

New boys in, old boys out, old boys in and new boys out

This topsy turvy day's play saw 20 seeds fail to take their appointed
places in the next round. Old boys who fell by the wayside included
New Zealand Dene O'Kane, who seems to be struggling recently to
negotiate the tricky qualifying rounds. Dennis Taylor bade farewell to
the British Open, leaving him just the World championship to make one
final mark on Snooker history. Recipients of their venue tickets were
John Read, and Michael Holt. Early season front runner Shokat Ali and
recent Asian Games Gold Medallist failed to qualify for the second day
running, as Worcester's Dave Finbow earned another chance to make
inroads into the ranking list.

Venue debutant in April will be Llanelli's Philip Williams. Williams has
battled since 1992 to make the breakthrough and today's battle was one
of the longest. In a match that lasted 4 hours 57 minutes Williams
overcame Preston's Ian McCulloch 5-4, having cleared the colours to
the pink in the decider to "collapse" over the line! Williams has held
an early 3-0 lead before McCulloch surged back to take a 4-3 lead,
Williams won a scrappy 8th to level, before the dramatic 54 minute
decider. McCulloch forced 4 consecutives fouls out of Williams on the
last red, but Williams held his nerve to take his chance on the
colours. He will now face an equally stubborn opponent - Brian Morgan
at the venue.

The qualifying rounds merit little attention in the media, but back in
the players' home clubs, the tension rises as time passes. Terry
Griffiths Matchroom is Williams' home club and hanging on the phones
were his fellow pros Terry Griffiths, Mark J Williams, Matthew Stevens
and Mark Fenton, as well as his fellow members and team mates who
congregated in the club to await the news. One ironic footnote to the
drama was that because the match time ran so late, Phil was unable to
get home in time to take his place in his team's league match and a
substitute had to be summoned at the last moment!

Derby's David Roe and Chris Scanlon produced another thrilling match
that ended 74-55 in Roe's favour in the final frame. Roe reproduced
his vintage form as he stroked in 134 in response to an earlier run of
110 from Scanlon.

Six overseas players get through but three lose!

The six matches in the "Overseas" play off round produced some
interesting results, with the three "british" low ranked seeds all
losing to the pre-qualifed overseas players, whilst the three lowly
ranked "overseas" qualifiers all beat their pre-qualified overseas
opponents.

Marco Fu shook off yesterday's disappointment to make short work of
Adrian Gunnell. Rapidly becoming noted for his breakbuilding, Fu again
rapped in breaks of 80, 53 and 60 to win 5-1 and take his place in
Rund Five tomorrow against Huberside's Karl Broughton.

Phaitoon Phonbun also stormed to a 5-0 win, at the hands of Irishman
Colm Gilcreest. Breaks of 68 twice in the fourth and fifth frames
secured his victory. Phonbun has set up an interesting encounter
against 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson.

Iceland's leading player Kristjan Helgason continued his run from
round one, beating Canada's Tom Finstad 5-2 in a high speed match that
took just 70 minutes as he wrapped it up with 80 in the last. Helgason
progresses to play Tony Jones.

Tony Knowles crashes out of the second event of the season as
Wisbech's Joe Perry inflicts a 5-1 hammering.

17 seeds fail to negotiate their first matches so far today... and two
scrape through, inflicting final frame defeats on Welshmen Steve Newbury and
Mark Fenton. Meanwhile there was bitter disappointment for
Alan Burnett in the all-Scottish battle against Marcus Campbell. In a
close match that went right to the wire, Burnett compiled a break of
62 in the decider, but it wasn't enough as Campbell clinched a black
ball victory 67-62. 75 from Leo Fernandez in his deciding frame was
enough to see him over the line against Leigh Griffin.

Robin Hull lost his 100% Blackpool record
today as he was denied in a final frame shoot out against
Jason Weston. Hull opened in superb style
with successive breaks of 85, 50 and 85 to open a 3-0 lead, but Weston chipped away and then knocked in a
spectacular run of 119 to haul himself level. A further run of 59 brought him level at 4-4 and he won a
tense decider 59-45.

Kent's Paul Sweeny continued a miserable
start to his New Year losing his first match for the second time, this time at the hands of Liverpool's
young star John Whitty. Whitty sealed the
match 5-3 with 75 in the eighth and final frame.

Tai Pichit continued his good form, flying
the flag for Thailand, as he compiled runs of 54 and 98 in a 5-3 win over
Adrian Rosa.

Bjorn Haneveer notched up a good win over
one of the season's high flyers
Hugh Abernethy. Haneveer scored heavily
throughout including breaks of 59, in the first and in the last three frames runs of 78, 104 and 65 to win
the match 5-4 from 4-2 down.

The opening round of The 199 British Open was played today in
Blackpool. The non-arrival of Kirk Stevens
was confirmed as he is still prevented from travelling by the heavy snow storms in Canada.

Three other overseas players failed to appear for the second time, an action which must cast some doubt on
the qualifying criteria for some of the overseas players - did they find the going a bit too tough in
Plymouth and decide to stay home or do they just not like the British winter?

Robin Hull of Finland continued his unbeaten
run as he knocked out Johl Younger of
Australia 5-2. Hull knocked in the day's first century - 125, followed this with 111 and added 72 as he
stormed to a 4-1 lead.

Tai Pichit recorded a good win over
Bristol's Mark Johnston-Allen, who
has lost both his opening matches. Breaks of 60 and 80 helped Pichit over the line, the only consolation for
Mark was a run of 98.

Mike Hallett grasped the opportunity for
some match practice against his inexperienced opponent. No fireworks from Hallett as he gratefully put a
match on the board, but he wrapped up his 5-0 win in 58 minutes.